A new Covid Variant

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New COVID variant is quietly gaining ground around the world
at the moment, and joining us is Professor Paul Griffin
Infectious Diseases. How are you, Paul, Yeah, good, thank you,
Thanks for having me our pleasure. Now, a new COVID variant.
What's the latest?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, that's right. So this one's called NB one one
and for most of them, I don't need to know
what it's called or too much about it other than
the fact that it's quite a bit more infectious. And
as a result of that, we're seeing a significant rise
in cases. And when that happens, we see things like
an increase in hospitalizations and more significant disease as well.
So in the latest report there's one hundred and thirty

(00:34):
eight people in Queens out of hospitals with COVID, which
is very significant, of course, particularly when you factor in
that we've got quite a lot of flu and RSV
around as well, so there's certainly a lot of respiratory
virus is causing significant problems for us right now.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Now, I saw that, you know, there's a rise in
Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, other Southeast Asian countries as well.
What about Australia, How are we faring.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, exactly. So a lot of those countries had a
significant eyes before we did, to the extent that some
other countries are usering travel warnings to some of those
Southeast Asian countries in India just because they've had a
huge increase in cases. We're probably a little bit behind them,
but we've certainly started to see that here as well.
So in the last week we've had over a thousand
cases of COVID diagnosed in Queensland alone, and you know

(01:19):
that's probably just scratching the surface of what's really out there.
And you know, as I mentioned, the hospitalizations are already
at one hundred and thirty eight from COVID, which is
you know a lot of people in quoyers at hospitals
with COVID already.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Are people taking their vaccinations or not.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
We've seen an increase, which is great, of course, but
it's nowhere near where it needs to be. And you know,
we know that vaccinations not necessarily for everybody, and you know,
there's people that are much higher risk and they're the
ones we really want to be vaccinated. So those people
that are older or with medical problems, and you know,
of course, if you're not sure, have a chat to
your GP or pharmacist. But you know, the increase is good,
but we're still really down on where we need to

(01:57):
be to mainly keep people out of hospital and stop
people from it.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, and we've had some cold days recently, what about
flu shots of people up on top of that.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
We've seen an increase, which is which is great, but
you know, once again we're not where we need to be.
We still have you know, really low rates and you
know the thing with the flu is, you know we've
had over sixteen hundred cases of flu diagos in the
last week, seventy five people in Queensland Hospital. So you
know that's a lot of people getting quite sick. And
you know the story that I hear all the time is, oh, jee,
I've you know, never been this sick from the flu.

(02:27):
And yeah, you know a lot of it is because
people are under vaccinated. So you know, you can get
both at once and if you haven't had them and
you're eligible now with certainly the time to get both vaccines.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
You sound a little bit fluy yourself this morning.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, were good. I'm just saying somewhere that's free. The
cold and have a bit of a block nose. I've
had my covid A flu vaccines fairly recently, so i
know I'm protected and i know I'm all good.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Thanks Professor Paul Griffin. Always a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Thank you, oh thanks very much